Group, dog search rubble but they find no signs of life

Palmerton man and his canine lead a team at World Trade Center site.

The gray soot covered Jereme Barkanic's shoes. As Barkanic, 24, of Palmerton, took off his dust-covered jacket and a bullet-proof vest, the somber look on his face told of where he'd been.

Barkanic and his 2-year-old German shepherd, Zeus, searched the rubble of what was once the World Trade Center on Wednesday, a day after two jetliners slammed into New York's tallest skyscrapers, killing perhaps thousands of people.

"Hell" is how Barkanic described what he'd witnessed in Manhattan. "It's terrible. They have gas leaks, a couple of fires still going."

Barkanic and three other members of his team, all volunteers who specialize in search and rescue missions, described crushed cars, burning debris and piles of rubble as high as 10 stories. It was those piles that Barkanic and the other team members, who aren't affiliated with a rescue squad, scoured for survivors and victims. They found no survivors. Zeus did key on what New York firefighters later said was a body after using an infrared imaging camera.

"Before we got there they pulled out three bodies," Barkanic said.

Barkanic called a number he saw on television Tuesday night and got through to the Incident Command with New York City police. He told police he had a K-9, three emergency medical technicians and a paramedic. The police told him they needed help and requested that he and the team be at Chelsea Pier Wednesday morning.

By noon, Barkanic and the others were sifting through piles of rubble, stepping over steel beams, bricks and chunks of concrete.

"I had no emotions," Barkanic said, standing on the West Side Highway just south of Christopher Street, about 10 blocks from where the gutted towers once stood. "I was there to do searches. But you feel bad, sad, you know, for everybody that didn't make it."

Jeffrey Derr, 24, of Allentown, a Gulf War veteran, said he'll never forget the images of burning rubble, shells of burned-out buildings, crushed emergency vehicles. The team searched for three or four hours, but had to break every 45 minutes.

You're "mentally tired from not knowing what you're going to find underneath the next piece of rubble," Derr said.

There was a bright moment Wednesday when New York firefighters recovered an American flag in the devastation. The flag was raised atop a pile of rubble and applause and cheers rang out, Derr said.

"Their morale is up," Barkanic said of the New York firefighters who may have lost hundreds of brother firefighters. "They're hoping to find some more survivors."

Seeing so much destruction up close didn't snuff out Barkanic's outlook.

"We're all Americans," Barkanic said. "We got to stick together, hope for the best, that the government can find whoever did this and take care of them."